You do, if you’re a printer. They’re counting on you to keep them up to date. Teach them about new technologies and equipment. Teach them about variable data and how to print sustainably. Introduce them to new substrates, applications, and finishes.

Show them things like how to improve their job files, save money by shaving just a hair off a particular format, and design a direct mail campaign that can make it through the US mail unscathed.

Teach your customers how to develop campaigns that are creative. And effective. Talk to them about the importance of good data and how it must be used for their print campaigns.

Instruct your customers on the value (and magic) of multichannel marketing. Show them where print fits in. Demonstrate how such a campaign would work for their organization. Focus on the tracking technologies for print. Many buyers and marketers have no idea this can even be done.

Be confident enough to offer suggestions on how to improve a job. What sort of campaign or print piece would you recommend that could be more successful, more effective, more attention-getting?

Businesspeople who buy print come from print manufacturing, or they come up through the ranks as print buyers by choice, or they are designers…or they have no experience whatsoever. They count on printers to teach them what they ought to know.

Teaching customers about print is part of a printer’s role. It needn’t be formal. It needn’t be onerous. It needn’t be expensive.

Do it with the spoken word. Do it with photographs. Do it with videos. Do it with content. Use your website, emails, the US mail, and your social channels. Host events, hire speakers, present at conferences, create webinars or podcasts.

View this as an opportunity, not sheer drudgery. Customers look for and respond to printers who educate them.

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Comments (2)

Jeff Dickerson

Good printers educate and world class printers educate when they point out how they altered your job so it would run better/quicker/less costly on press. They catch errors before they make a proof and reduce time and cost when they avoid rework. They provide swatch books and paper sample and sponsor education events and even travel with a buyer to paper shows and third party vendors. They provide lots of cool samples (that is how I label my three file folders of cool samples). Internally we educate each other but if there is only one Print buyer in an organization, print Vendors carry the load of education. Hopefully, Print Buyers are regularly on the web and search sites that can educate on the fine points of print and design.